Lithuania/ 8.1 Support to artists and other creative workers

8.1.1 Overview of strategies, programmes and direct or indirect forms of support

Some of the most important challenges to be addressed in the future are devising additional special measures for artists, creating overall better conditions for creativity, improving the dissemination of arts productions, and establishing legal norms and social security for artists.

The state accounts for the lion's share in financing of artists and their organisations. Indirectly, artists are supported through tax exemptions to their organisations, for creative activities and on works of art. Support from private sponsors and the third sector has not succeeded in providing sufficient additional income. The Lithuanian arts market is rather limited and underdeveloped, and there is an imbalance between the quantity of arts productions on the market and society's buying power. The economic and social position of the artist, especially of freelance professionals, has naturally deteriorated.

The Ministry's of Culture finance policy took a new direction in the mid 2000s, when the system of financing of respective programmes was introduced. More than 40 culture and arts programmes were established with specific regulations and requirements in order to obtain state partial financial support. The system of the programmes was focused towards improvement of cultural services around the country and made a substantial impact on the situation regarding public access to culture and diversity of services (see: http://www.lrkm.lt; financed programmes).

One such programme, "Development and Dissemination of Arts" launched by the Ministry, has partial project financing for professional theatres, support for young artists, dissemination of professional art in the regions, film production, support for art creators' associations, new music and drama production, international art events, etc. The Table below provides information on direct financing of the programme's subjects.

Table 11: Financing for the programme "Development and Dissemination of Arts", in LTL, 2013

No.

Subject of the Programme

In LTL

1

Maintenance of Theatres and Concert organisations

64 137 000

2

Support for rent of premises for non-public theatres and concert organisations

300 000

3

Maintenance of Lithuanian Film Centre

1 185 000

4

Film production and dissemination (including taxes for Eurimage, Audiovisual Observatory, experts and commissions, Film Council work, etc.).

8 416 000

5

National Culture and Art Award, the Government Award, Ministry of Culture Awards

Support for several activities, such as young artists, creative industries, performance, visual arts, grants, three year festivals, etc. of the programme are financed by the Culture Support Fund (12 165 000 LTL in 2013). The Ministry elaborated the list of significant international art projects (film, music, theatre, dance festivals, exhibitions, etc.) for the period 2013-2015, according to which all selected projects will receive three year permanent state financing support.

The Compendium editors want to thank you for your feedback, which we value as an important input towards maintaining or improving the quality of our information system. It will also be forwarded to the expert who is responsible for the text and may lead, where appropriate, to changes within the next weeks.
You can now choose whether you want to provide your comments anonymously or openly with your mail address. In the latter case, possible exchanges with our authors or editors will be facilitated. However, be assured that we will treat your query with the same attention regardless of your choice. As well, your contact data will not be disclosed publicly by us, nor transferred to any third parties and only be used internally for editorial purposes of the Compendium:

I want to submit my comment anonymously

To allow for exchanges on this matter, here is my mail address/name

E-Mail:

Name:

To handle your comment properly, especially if it is sent anonymously, we still need the following data